Harry Potter Robes

Step 6 Attach hood to back

Now you still have one open side on the hood, the one that I marked blue in the picture.
This one has to be attached to the back of the neck at the line also marked blue. Right on right again, of course.

I obviously do not sew very often. So, I am still confused. I guess my question is, when I am cutting my fabric, do I trace my pattern on a fold? The way I am picturing it, is that I would fold my back fabric in half (the fold across from seam 5) and then trace the pattern. So when I unfold it, it almost makes a triangle. Correct? If I am supposed to trace my pattern on a fold, do I also cut along the fold?

I guess I am also confused about which part is which. What exactly is seam 5? Is that just ONE side of the robe (under one arm)?

What I am picturing is having a triangular shaped costume when I am finished and that just doesn’t seem correct.

1 Reply

Yes, you do cut the back part on fold, but do not cut along the fold. And I woundn’t call it a triangle, it’s more of a trapezium ;)
To your second question: The body of the robe will consist of 3 parts. 2 front parts (which are the whole big pattern piece) and a back part (which is the part of the big pattern piece with the swirly pattern cut on fold). So yes, seam 5 is just one side of the robe, where you sew one of the front pieces to the back piece.
Again, with the triangle shape, I wouldn’t call it that ;) However, you are right, the bottom is much wider than the top, but as the fabric isn’t completely stiff, it will not look that way once it’s worn. I would love to show you a picture of the robe completely laid out so you could see the finished shape, but I don’t even own on myself… gave them all away :(

This honestly doesn’t make any sense to me. You say that the hood is attached to the body. But then you say that BOTH blue seams should be open once everything else is sewed together. You cannot have both.

If you have both blue seams OPEN, then the hood is no longer attached to the cloak. If you want the hood attached to the cloak, then you only have the top blue seam open.

1 Reply

It does make sense, but I do admit that my sketch isn’t very clear… I’m sorry.
The drawing is two pattern parts in one. The front parts (which include the halfes of the hood) and the back parts. The back part is the section of the sketch that has this kind of swirly pattern.
The blue line that goes towards the long straight line is basically the back neckline and not relevant for the front parts. The other blue line (on the hood) is only relevant for the front parts because the hood is only a part of these pattern pieces.
So at the point where the blue seams are still open, the hood is attached to the front parts, just like it always was, with a hole at the back of the neck, where it is not yet joined to the cloak.

I hope this clears it up a bit. Again, I’m very sorry for the less than great instructions. I’m working on a better tutorial, but I simply haven’t got the time at the moment…

Soo…i didn’t mean to mark your reply as inappropriate, I hit the wrong button. Anyway, I’m going to try to figure this out. If all else fails, I’ll just make it hoodless :). The rest of it looks great though.

1 Reply

Hi I am right in the middle of making a cloak with this pattern and this part just has me stumped. I have the hood piece cut out and seam 1 sewn, but after that I’m lost. Could you elaborate on how it should look and exactly how to attach it?

1 Reply

Well first of all there aren’t really “hood pieces”, they’re actually attached to the front pieces. If you accidentally cut them out on their own, attach them to the front pieces first.
Then, as you already did seam 1, do seam 2 as well but not the blue part! Both on the black fabric and the coloured fabric (though in this step, we’ll ignore the lining). Now you already have the hood shape.
You should also have done the side and shoulder seams already, so the basic shape of the robe is already there as well.
Both “blue seams” are still open though, and now you take this open seam on the hood and attach it (right on right) onto the back neckline (=the other blue seam). This way you close the hole at the back of the neck and the hood is properly attached :)

I hope this helps you… This is a really hard step to explain without a picture, but as I made my robes, I didn’t necessarily plan on making a tutorial and therefor don’t have any “in progress” pictures. I’m really sorry :(

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